1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to methods for manufacturing ceramic plates, and more particularly, relates to a method for manufacturing ceramic plates in which ceramic layers are separated from a sintered body including ceramic layers and metal layers alternately laminated to each other, to obtain the ceramic plates.
2. Description of the Related Art
In recent years, in various ceramic electronic components, such as an IC substrate and a ceramic capacitor, a decrease in thickness and a reduction in size have been advanced. It has also been requested to further decrease the thickness of a ceramic plate used for forming ceramic electronic components.
In addition, as a method for manufacturing the ceramic plate as described above, a method for forming thin ceramic plates has been proposed in which, after a laminate is formed by laminating ceramic green sheets provided with un-sintered metal films, the laminate is processed by a firing treatment to form a sintered body 103 composed of ceramic layers 101 and metal layers 102 alternately laminated to each other, and as shown in FIG. 13, while the sintered body 103 is immersed in an alcohol 104, an external force, such as ultrasonic waves, is applied to the sintered body 103 as shown by arrows to separate the metal layers 102 and the ceramic layers 101.
However, according to Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2005-15254, since the ceramic layers 101 and the metal layers 102 are separated by application of an external force, such as ultrasonic waves, to the sintered body 103, when the ceramic layers 101 have an extremely small thickness (such as 10 μm or less), a problem may arise in some cases in that the ceramic layers 101 are damaged, for example, by cracks generated therein caused by the external force applied thereto.
In addition, according to Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2005-15254, since the external force is applied to the sintered body as described above, the ceramic layers 101 and the metal layers 102 are separated into individual layers, and as a result, a ceramic plate having a laminate structure cannot be obtained. Hence, it has been difficult to apply a separated ceramic plate to laminate type electronic components.
In addition, according to a technique of Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2005-15255, although the separation between the ceramic layer 101 and the metal layer 102 can be easily performed by the use of platinum or iridium as a metal film component, since the ceramic layer 101 and the metal layer 102 are separated from each other by applying an external force, such as ultrasonic waves, to the sintered body 103 as in the case of Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2005-15254, the ceramic layer 101 may also be damaged when the thickness thereof is extremely small, and hence it is also difficult to apply the above technique to laminate type electronic components.